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To Pal Around with Terrorists
"To Pal Around with Terrorists" was the 37th Special Comment delivered on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, airing on 6 October 2008. The Comment And finally tonight, as promised, a special comment about the campaign remarks made this weekend and today by the Governor of Alaska. Last Wednesday, Sheriff's deputies arrived at the home of a woman in Akron, Ohio named Addie Polk, in order to evict her. After 38 years in that house, Ms. Polk had fallen behind on paying the mortgage. It was so bad that the company that held that mortgage, Fannie Mae, had foreclosed. In fact, it was far worse than anybody knew. Addie Polk couldn't bear it any more. So, rather than be evicted, she shot herself in the chest. Evidently she will survive. And, after Congressman Dennis Kucinich brought her plight to the floor of the House, Fannie Mae, that mortgage giant you and I and all the rest of us pretty much own now, agreed it would forgive Addie Polk's debt and, when she gets out of the hospital, let her go back and live in her home again. That this is already a Gothic horror story, you'll agree. But I left out one detail. Addie Polk is 90 years old. In the self-pronounced area of expertise of the Governor of Alaska, energy, the real experts of both parties are at a loss to figure out any way, even "drill, baby, drill," that might actually lower gas prices before 2018. We are at war in two countries and a lame duck President with no reason to check his own imbalance still has dreams of one more. And a 90-year-old woman, trapped in the middle of a financial meltdown, shoots herself, and she's still in better shape than the economy. Yet, the Governor of Alaska wants to talk about somebody Barack Obama doesn't know very well, and what this somebody Barack Obama doesn't know very well did, during the year Obama was eight and the year the Governor of Alaska was in pre-Kindergarten. And she wants to talk about Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And she doesn't object to being introduced with a reference to Barack Obama's middle name. Well, this is my suggestion. In much the same way we, America, in the corporate persona of Fannie Mae, have forgiven poor Addie Polk of Akron, Ohio, we, America, also need to forgive poor Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska. They are both in situations that are beyond their ability to cope. They are both stuck in a crucible caused by forces they cannot comprehend. They are both unable to understand what they are doing. After stumbling through a clumsier version of it at Englewood, Colorado, the Governor of Alaska said Saturday at Carson, California: "Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country." She later defended the remark by adding this was an "association that has been known but hasn't been talked about." Governor, conservative groups have thus far spent ten million dollars this year trying to make something, anything, out of the brief interaction on a charity board between Senator Obama and a rehabilitated former domestic radical from the '60s. And not even Conservatives have been stupid enough to buy the snake oil that this was either a close relationship or a nefarious one. But of course, you know better, Governor. You're smarter than the rest of us. A reporter asks you a horrible "gotcha question" like: which newspapers do you read, and it takes you four days to come up with an answer, and somehow it's the reporter's fault. The reporter then asks you to name one Supreme Court ruling with which you disagree other than Roe vs. Wade, and even though you'd commented on just such a case from Alaska, no less, not three months ago, your eyes turn into a big neon sign reading "Vacancy" and you insist it's because that evil media asked the wrong question. So you're the genius Governor, and it's your supporters and the undecided voters who are the dopes who are now going to believe the same Mickey-Mouse crap that Senator Clinton couldn't get to stick, and Sean Hannity couldn't get to stick, just because it's you adding that word "terrorist" and that phrase "palling around" and dropping the "G" in palling. And of course, Governor, those same dopes, and we the media morons, we are not smart enough to ask about that pesky Alaskan Independence Party, and why you recorded a speech for its convention last March, and why your husband remained a registered member of it until 2002, even though it was founded by a man named Joe Vogler who wanted Alaska to secede from the United States. Secede, the way the South seceded precipitating the Civil War. This is same Joe Vogler who once said: "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government, and I won't be buried under their damn flag." And who also said: "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." Shoot, Governor, them's strong words, hah? Did he wink as he said 'em? You betcha! So, where does Joe Vogler rank on the scales of "terrorists who would target their own country?" Your opponent's guy, Ayers, wound up on a volunteer anti-poverty committee in Chicago. But your guy, Vogler, wound up founding a group that wanted to rip one of the stars off the American flag! Well, Okay, Governor, Vogler's more your husband's guy. So it's your husband who's been "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country. "But I'm assuming you've been "palling around" with your husband. But, gee willikers, Governor, you know what's best. You're not one of these Washington insiders who would notice that though that's a straight line connecting you, your husband, and this Alaskan secessionist, you're standing under a banner with the campaign slogan "Country First." And if somebody out there puts two and two together they might just ask, "which Country do you mean? The Country of Alaska?" "The heels are on," you said with another smile. "The gloves are off." Well, if you're telling William Kristol you want to talk about Jeremiah Wright, for sure! So, Governor you don't mind addressing whether this Pastor Muthee is a terrorist? Do you? We've told you before about Pastor Thomas Muthee. He's the preacher who visited the Wasilla Assembly of God church a couple of times while the Governor was there, ironically enough, just about as many times as Bill Ayers has met Barack Obama. And, see, there was this one time where Pastor Muthee actually laid hands on the Governor. And I'm sure that sounds like just some crazy anecdote, except there's videotape. And of course the Governor talked about this moment, the laying on of hands, just last summer. It was in October, 2005, as the video indicates, when Muthee put his hands on Sarah Palin's back and says, "make a way for Sarah, even in the political arena. Make a way, my God. Bring finances her way, even for the campaign in the name of Jesus. Every form of witchcraft, it will be rebuked in the name of Jesus. Father, make her way now." And the Governor said that "bold" approach of Pastor Muthee was one of the reasons she became Governor, and she gives him just oodles of credit for puttin' her on the path. The problem for the governor is that in 1999 the Christian Science Monitor newspaper reported that Pastor Muthee had gotten his start a decade earlier in Kenya, in the Nairobi suburb of Kiambu. Kiambu was crime-ridden. So this character Muthee shows up, and announces it was the fault of the woman in town who he had decided was a witch. And Muthee gave the witch a choice: either be saved, or get out of town. And the woman initially chose none of the above, but this became less than a viable option when Muthee got 200 of the townspeople together and they decided, heck, you know, Muthee's right. She probably is a witch. And the next thing you know, the police are raiding her house and reportedly shooting her snake, because if she was a witch, the snake had to be a demon. And then the woman left town and everybody said crime went down, and most of the bars closed and this is not only how Pastor Muthee got started, but he's proud of it and he tells the story in his testimonial videotapes. And people in that church in Wasilla, where he laid hands on the Governor, knew all about it. And they think it was just a Joe-Six-Pack, Hockey Mom kind of thing to do, to let a guy who branded some woman in Kenya a witch demand that God make some different woman the Governor of Alaska! Governor, what would you call someone who arrives in a suburb, blames one resident for the local crime, organizes a mob to threaten the woman, convinces the authorities to go and raid her home, and then chases her out of the suburb? Come on, Governor, just give us one answer that has something to do with the question you were just asked. That's right you'd call him a terrorist. And since it was in his own country, that would make him? Yes, very good, a domestic terrorist. So, Governor, you've been "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." Say it ain't so, Gov! Say it ain't so! Of course it is. The Governor of Alaska ignores Addie Polk and the American tragedy that is a 90-year old woman shooting herself out of shame and panic and who knows what else over the mortgage! Instead the Governor of Alaska wants to start calling people terrorists and insisting of Senator Obama that quote "this is not a man who sees America like you and I see America," and whose rhetoric like that, and the "palling around with terrorists" line were rightly described by the Associated Press yesterday as a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing kind of way of slipping racism into the equation, because it's a nifty trick to remind the white folk that, psst, Obama is black. But overriding this sleaziness, and dog-gone it, the Governor of Alaska has got to be the sleaziest politician working the stage at the moment, there is the sheer blessed stupidity of letting herself become the bomb-thrower when her own life is full of domestic terrorists. Governor? Bill Ayers? Your hubby was in this secessionist hate group for which you recorded a video this year. Governor? Jeremiah Wright? That pastor you credit with helping you become Governor is either a con man or a psycho who believes he can tell which woman in the village is the witch, and which woman is the governor. And Governor, there's also "The U.S. Council on World Freedom." You should ask Senatpr McCain about that outfit and why he had to scat away from it 22 years ago. Or, ask the senator why, yesterday, his own brother Joe McCain referred to Northern Virginia as, quote, "communist country." Or you could ask him about Pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Or about why Sen. McCain said introducing Jeremiah Wright into this campaign, "there's no place for that kind of campaigning, the American people don't want it, period." Or don't ask. You know best. You're the one selling the patent medicine. Those of us out here, we're just the suckers pulling out our greenbacks. Go on talking about this man Ayers and trying to link Obama to that word "terrorist." But be prepared for others to ask you about your pastor and terrorism and for still others to ask you about the First Dude and terrorism. But not me, Governor. I forgive you. You are about as guilty here as poor Ms. Addie Polk in Akron. And I hope that after what you've done to yourself, you recover as well as she seems to be doing, and that you too get to go back and live in your own home again. Because if you think the terrorism con, and the racism sting are going to do anything but bury you and Sen, McCain, you need to pick up one of those how-many-ever newspapers you read-what was it, infinity-and check the headlines to find out what people are really worried about right now. Otherwise, when you said "the heels are on, the gloves are off," you got as close to telling the truth as you've ever gotten, and without really knowing it. Because, for you and Sen. McCain, Governor Palin, it's not the gloves that just came off. Obviously, it's the wheels. See Also Category:2008 Special Comments